When a person approaches an injury lawyer they often come with a multitude of questions. The thought of taking legal action of this kind is a daunting one, since most people are lucky enough to have little experience of the law or of building a legal case. If you’ve received a whiplash injury, however, then the chances are that you’ll be experiencing a great deal of pain and distress. It may even be that you’ve had to take time off work to recover from your whiplash, so if the accident which caused it in the first place was brought about by the negligence of another party you have every right to expect them to have to pay you some compensation.
It’s not a question of greedily grabbing a pay-out, or even of punishing the responsible party. The point of compensation is to allow you to carry on living your life, as far as you can, in the manner which you were used to before the accident. The questions which people ask usually revolve around how much information is required to build the case, whether it’s inevitable that they’ll end up going to court and, perhaps most commonly, exactly how much compensation they’ll be likely to receive.
If a personal injury lawyer makes a promise that you’ll be guaranteed a certain amount of money then that may well be the point at which you should walk away and look for someone else to help you. The truth is that even the most experienced lawyer will, at best, be able to give you only an estimate of what you may be likely to receive. This calculation can be made because compensation is generally based upon a predictable set of factors.
The first of these factors is the nature and severity of your injury, allied to factors such as your age and the circumstances of your accident. If it’s felt you may have contributed in some way to the accident happening then this may reduce your compensation, whilst a younger, more active person might receive more compensation for a curtailment of their mobility than somebody older. Other factors which are used to calculate compensation are more clearly financial. You’ll receive an amount to cover any money you’ve had to spend as a direct result of the accident, as well as money to compensate you for any earnings you’ve lost through having to stay off work. Whilst no reputable lawyer will say they know exactly how much you’ll receive, they will be able to give you a reasonable estimate and then will do their very best to build a case which will win this compensation for you.
